TOLEDO: I have a great respect for Caretas as a publication. It is an institution in Peru, and I don’t understand the political motivation of [editor] Enrique Zileri in this. I do know that among his associates are people who are very close to [rival candidate] Lourdes Flores.
I prefer not to go into this in order to avoid adding more gasoline to the fire. But it has profoundly surprised me. Yet at the end of the day that’s democracy, and that’s what I have fought for. I don’t believe there can be democracy without unlimited freedom of expression. If I am elected [president], let the press criticize me. That’s fine because I fought for that freedom of expression.
Oh, please…
Oh, yes, I drink it every day. When I go to [the Andean cities of] Puno or Cuzco, I drink three or four cups a day.
Yes, in the mountains with my father. That’s part of the culture.
Never, never. Though I would not pass judgment on those who do because each person has his own values.
This would be the first time in 500 years since the arrival of the Spaniards that a person coming from the 95 percent of the population who never took part in the political leadership of the nation is democratically elected president. That enormous rupture with tradition would represent an enormous responsibility for me.
Yes, I do. My country is a profoundly and devastatingly racist country. There are some people who must be gritting their teeth, [but] they have to accept me. I have all the credentials. I went to San Francisco, Stanford, the World Bank. I’ve achieved what others would like to have done and then some. Obviously I can’t change this face. Fortunately.
My life is a very strange mixture. I wear Giorgio Armani, I’m a man who has been educated in the academic institutions of the Western world, and I can circulate in Paris, New York, Washington and Tokyo. But I love it when I go to my peasant communities. When I travel I bring along cassettes of [Peruvian] folk music that I like. In this age it is not incompatible to champion those indigenous values and also realize we are living in a globalized, competitive world. This is not merely an academic exercise. I have lived this.
A teacher with 15 to 20 years’ experience earns an average monthly wage of $160. Is it populist to be concerned about their wage increases? If I become president, I will increase the amount of spending on education from 14 to 30 percent of the national government budget. But that doesn’t mean we’ll spend more than what the government receives in revenues. That means we’ll have to immediately cut spending in other sectors, like the defense budget. It would be populist if you offered [better salaries] for political gain by increasing government spending that generated hyperinflation.
The news media has tried to draw certain parallels, but you have to put it in proper perspective. Being poor in the United States is very different from being poor in Peru. There are some parallels. I admire much of President Clinton’s work in the area of social issues, and I have a high regard for Hillary Clinton’s mind. Eliane is a woman who thinks for herself, who is a very capable professional with extensive experience in the international ambit, [but] who also has a deep-seated concern for Andean culture. Her declarations surprise many because there’s a notion that the wife of a candidate should be a woman who stays at home cooking and taking care of the children. She’s not like that.
Yes, the fact that they share the political task at hand. But I make the decisions and I take full responsibility for those decisions.
